


Someone You Care About Very Deeply

by You_Are_Constance



Category: The Clockmaker's Daughter - Webborn/Finn
Genre: Angst, Clockmaking, F/M, Fluff, Gifts, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, based on a wonderful prompt, but he gets it eventually, but still follows the plot, but there's also, gifts are Important to Constance, i guess, idk what else to tag, minor changes to canon, time jumps, will is slightly oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29278560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Are_Constance/pseuds/You_Are_Constance
Summary: Prompt: young (relatively, based on canon yk) constance asking abraham how clockmaking works and making a pocketwatch, and then later giving it to will :)
Relationships: William Riley/Constance Reed
Comments: 7
Kudos: 3





	Someone You Care About Very Deeply

**Author's Note:**

> credit to the prompt goes to the wonderful @catstrophysics on tumblr!! thank you so much it was such a great prompt!

“Abraham?” Constance asks nervously, peeking into his workroom.

“Yes?” he replies, not looking up from his work.

“What are you doing?” She starts walking inside, softly closing the door behind her.

“I am… making a gift,” he responds as Constance makes her way to his work table where he sat.

“What is a ‘gift?’”

“It is… something that you give to someone.”

“Who is the ‘someone’?”

He hesitates before replying. “Usually, you give a gift to someone that you care about very deeply, but sometimes you give a gift to someone just to congratulate them on something.”

“Which kind are you making?”

“The second kind.”

She didn’t reply at first, until she asked, “Can I make a gift?”

Abraham nodded, motioning to the spare seat beside him. She sat down and watched his hands as they assembled what appeared to be a small clock.

“This is a pocket watch.” He holds up the clearly not-finished object to show her.

“It looks like a clock,” she replies.

Abraham nods. “It is a clock, a very small one, that you carry with you, wherever you go.”

She stares at the tiny clock and the gears and tools spread around on the surface of the desk.

“Can I make one?”

Abraham nods, beginning to gather a few tools, gears, and other things she can’t name then begins to lead her, guiding her hands, in crafting a pocket watch.

As they work, Constance finds herself asking Abraham, “Who is your gift for?”

“A boy in town,” he replies quickly. “His wedding is coming soon, and this will be a wedding gift.”

“What is… a ‘wedding?’”

Abraham looks at her silently for a long time, and Constance worries that maybe she’s done something wrong, and then he begins, “Well, it takes a bit of explaining, but I don’t have anywhere to be soon. A wedding—”

Constance looks at the clock face of the pocket watch that Abraham helped her make after Abraham leaves. He has some sort of business to attend to, which is as much as Constance knows about it.

It’s been a while since Abraham taught her about clockmaking, and she’s made a few other clocks and pocket watches since, but this one, this first one, she’s held on to. She doesn’t really know why, but ever since she’s made it, she’s had it with her.

She carries it with her as she finally dares to leave the house and journey out into town. She carries it with her when she goes out into town again to deliver a dress as a replacement for the one she accidentally ruined.

_Is this a gift?_ she asks herself as she carries the wrapped up dress through the dark streets. _I think so. The pocket watch Abraham made was a gift… so I think this would be one too._

She still carries the pocket watch with her when she journeys out a third time – after Abraham told her not to – to the wedding.

She carries the pocket watch with her every time she goes out after that, which happens quite a lot from then on.

That should be all it is. She carries the pocket watch with her. But it isn’t.

Abraham taught her to make a gift, and the pocket watch was what came out of it.

_You give a gift to someone that you care about very deeply._

Constance feels that it is just a little bit _wrong_ for her to keep it.

She’s made plenty of gifts. She’s made something for almost everyone in town by this point. She left dresses on doorsteps. She shouldn’t feel wrong about keeping the first thing she made. It was special.

But maybe that was _why_ she wanted to give it to someone. It was special.

And there was someone in town that Constance hadn’t given a gift to yet.

She couldn’t quite figure out _why_ she hadn’t given him a gift yet… they were rather close.

She was going to give him a gift now, that doesn’t really matter now.

“Will?” she asks, slightly nervously. She doesn’t really know what she wants to say yet. She should have planned ahead.

“Yes?”

She holds out the pocket watch to him. “This… this is for you.”

He looks down at the watch hanging from her hand, gently taking hold of it and studying it.

“It’s… beautiful,” he breathes.

Constance can’t help but smile. “It’s a gift… You give a gift to someone that you care about… very deeply.” She ends in whispers and realizes that he’s staring at her. “I realized I hadn’t given you a gift yet,” she continues, “and I had to fix that.”

He smiles, looking down at the watch again, then looking back up to her. “I, uh, I have something that I want to tell you, too.”

Constance wants to stay, she tries to stay, but she knows that she doesn’t have much time left. Still, she nods for him to go on.

“I guess, what I mean is… is that, I, uh, I…”

She hates this. She hates that she has to reply, “I have to go,” and run off without explaining why.

She hates that she has to leave him behind, but she couldn’t help it. She has to go, or else he’d find out.

She doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to face what might happen if he did find out.

Will looks down at the pocket watch Constance gave to him.

_You give a gift to someone that you care about very deeply._

_Someone you care about very deeply._

_Care about very deeply._

_Care about._

He… he’s not sure what that means. Maybe he should be, maybe he should know what Constance meant in giving this to him, but he doesn’t. He’s just… confused.

He carefully places the watch into his pocket and walks back into town.

That confusion only worsened as he looks down at the pocket watch again only a few hours later.

He doesn’t know what to feel.

Constance… she…

She’s been lying to him, keeping things from him, keeping _who she was_ from him… and he can’t hate her.

She gave him a gift, and she then said that “You give a gift to someone that you care about very deeply.”

Maybe now he knows what she meant by that.

Years, no, decades later, Will looks down at the pocket watch again, then up at Constance.

The square is empty, and all the houses are dark. He removes his mask and pulls down his hood, smiling up and Constance.

“Well, it’s been another year,” he sighs. He looks down at the ground, mumbling to himself, “It’s going to work. It’s going to work, someday. I just need to keep waiting.” He sucks in a breath as he looks up at Constance again, forcing himself to smile.

“And I will. I’ll keep waiting.”

He’s made a promise to himself and to her.

He made that promise when she gave him the pocket watch, he just didn’t realize until later.

He would wait for her, no matter how long it would take.

He would wait.

**Author's Note:**

> comments give me life (but same rules apply - no swearing please)
> 
> this was honestly so much fun to write. and i promise, i didn't mean for it to turn angsty... it just happened...


End file.
